1/2 Thaler

Basel's civic coinage of the early eighteenth century was produced under the authority of the city council, which jealously guarded its minting rights against repeated pressure from the Holy Roman imperial administration to standardize cantonal issues. The 1720 half thaler falls within a production window when the Basel mint was navigating the monetary disorder left by the Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession — both of which disrupted silver flows across the Rhine corridor for decades.

HMZ 2#100a is among the more precisely documented of Basel's civic thalers, a series known for inconsistent die alignment across the run.